First Nations enter security business

Kingfisher Lake Chief James Mamakwa is looking forward to employment and training opportunities from his community’s new partnership: Synterra Security Solutions LP.
“We hope to train our people and get employment for our community members,” Mamakwa said during the Oct. 19 announcement of the security company. “We already have one contract with the Musselwhite Mine … so it’s already started.”
The First Nations security company is a partnership between Naicatchewenin, Wunnumin Lake, Kingfisher Lake and Canadian Security Management/Canadian Mine Security. It aims to provide services for new businesses emerging in First Nations territory across northern Ontario.
“It’s time for us to be at the front of the bus instead of being at the back,” said Tony Marinaro, chief business development officer with Naicatchewenin Development Corp. “It’s great for our kids. We have to be able to build the capacity for them to be able to make a living.”
Marinaro said the partnership is an opportunity to build capacity for the three communities.
“We have a number of mines within our treaty areas we live in,” Marinaro said. “It will be great to take a business approach to partnering with these companies in the sense of providing a service to them.”
Although the three communities are from different treaty areas, with Naicatchewenin in the Treaty 3 area and Kingfisher and Wunnumin in the Treaty 9 area, they are all looking for meaningful local employment opportunities, full training services and revenue sharing through their partnership with Canadian Security Management/Canadian Mine Security.
“It’s going to really benefit my young people,” said Wunnumin Lake Chief Rod Winnepetonga. “They are looking for employment anywhere that is available to them. I want my young people to be trained.”
Naicatchewenin Chief Wayne Smith said the partnership would fulfill many of his community’s economic development goals.
“We’re hoping it’s going to bring a lot of opportunities for our community members – to build capacity, to train them in the security area,” Smith said. “Once they are trained, it’s going to give them the opportunity to utilize their skills in other areas, not only specifically to the mining area, they can take that trade and skill to other areas.”
Although Naicatchewenin currently does not have any community members on board with Synterra, there are a number of community members who are interested in the security field.
“Together, I feel we can form a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Scott McIntosh, president of Canadian Security Management/Canadian Mine Security. “We have our own training officers that can take a security officer from little to no knowledge, as long as they have the core skills to be able to learn, to training them in-house to be a premium security officer at mine sites or energy projects or construction sites.”
Synterra will be offering a variety of services, including remote site security officer programs, security consulting, security surveys/audits, security plan implementation, premium security officer programs, patrol services, physical security measures and corporate investigations.